No sh*t?
Eidos life president Ian Livingstone has attacked the pre-owned sales market, becoming one in a long line of people who have suddenly decided capitalism is bad, despite all the exploitation they’ve done of the very same market. He believes used games are a serious issue and that something needs to be done.
“The pre-owned market is a serious problem, because there is no benefit to developers or publishers,” he explains. “A shop makes a bigger margin on a pre-owned title, and can sell them six or seven times, so there is no incentive for them to reorder and the content creator gets no slice of the action.”
Lingstone notes, however, that retail chains are still crucial: “These aren’t just shops, they are a marketing tool, a window into our world where software houses can display their wares.”
Most publishes don’t care about their consumers, often going so far as to show contempt, so why should consumers care about publishers? It amuses me how companies will be as cutthroat and ruthless as they like, yet balk and cry when a retail outlet decided to be equally as cuthroat and ruthless.
Maybe when we consumers get a guarantee that our sixty dollars will actually get us a game worth sixty dollars, I’ll pull out a little violin for those poor, poor publishers.
